Commit failed error when committing new version to svn repository

If you want to set default editor that will be used every time you run

svn commit

Try the following command in the shell:

export SVN_EDITOR=nano

This will set nano as the text editor for commit messages. From now on, when you call svn commit without the -m flag, nano will open. Upon closing nano, SVN will continue to commit.

Justin,

Every time you commit with Subversion, you need to write a summary of what is being committed (i.e. the commit message). The error is because Subversion is trying to launch a text editor so that you can write a commit message, but the editor is never being launched. Setting the SVN_EDITOR in your .bash_profile will do the trick. Here are some detailed step-by-step instructions on how to set vim as the default editor used by svn: Original link dead, replaced with archive.is mirror

Alternatively, as suggested in error message, you can load a commit message from an existing file with -f, or pass in a message with -m.

Examples:

svn commit -m "Fixed a regression that prevented pigs from flying (resolves issue #123, but causes strange behavior elsewhere)"
svn commit -f /path/to/a/file/with/a/long/commit/message.txt

I also had the same issue, however it was on Windows. I was able to resolve the issue by using -m (--message) and providing the commit message.

I also tried using cygwin with a commit message and that worked.